


A Symbol of Goodwill and Love

by LayALioness



Series: 12 Days of Bellarke! [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 10:55:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5331575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LayALioness/pseuds/LayALioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So when you said we need a good tree, you meant,” he hedges, and she huffs, little clouds of steam escaping her mouth.</p><p>“One that needs a good home,” she says, like it’s obvious. “Shopping for a Christmas tree is like going to the pound—you don’t look for a purebred at the pound, Bellamy. You look for the puppy with a missing eye, or mange. One that needs us.”</p><p>“If this is code for wanting us to get a puppy,” Bellamy muses, reaching out to tug on the tassels of her hat. “I think we should probably live together, first.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Symbol of Goodwill and Love

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally just gonna be a short fic about Clarke wanting a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, but a third of it is backstory oops.
> 
> title from O Christmas Tree, bc priorities.

“Bellamy.”

Bellamy winces as he feels something poke his cheek, for the third time. He’d been hoping if he just ignored it, it might stop, but apparently not. Clarke’s voice sounds close and serious, and he blinks his eyes open a few times, adjusting to the light.

“What’s wrong?” he grumbles, fighting the urge to just roll over and go back to sleep. It’s just—he’s _warm_ , okay? And he had a late night, because some of the local kids decided to come in and dump all their cans of Mountain Dew on the public first level bathroom floor, which he then cleaned because he didn’t want just to leave it for the custodian. Honestly, when they’re not being cute, or sleeping, kids are kind of the worst.

Clarke waves something in his face, that mostly just looks like a black blur because he’s not wearing his glasses, and it’s too close to his eyes. He grabs her wrist to steady it, and pulls back a little.

He still can’t tell what it is.

“Is that a black candy cane?” he asks, a little confused, because _she woke him up for_ this? “Why is it black? Is it from Halloween or something?”

Almost on cue, Clarke flushes. Halloween was the first night they hooked up—not their first date, because they were both kind of stupid about things for a while, and each thought the other didn’t want something serious. There was a lot of miscommunication, and frustration from their friends, and some truly _awesome_ sex, that would have been even better if they were actually dating.

And then Bellamy actually asked her out at Thanksgiving dinner—or, _before_ Thanksgiving dinner, which would have been a very big mistake if she said no, since they ended up seated right beside each other—because apparently they seem to have a thing with holidays. He’s not sure what to expect on Christmas, but he’s been itching to say _I love you_ for a while, so it’ll probably be that.

“It’s part of your tree,” she says, narrowing her eyes. “You’re _fake_ tree,” she clarifies, like some sort of accusation. Bellamy just stares up at her, amused.

“I’m assuming you’re not a fan?”

Clarke hits him on the head with the thing, whatever it is, and says “No! And I can’t _believe_ you are!”

He shrugs, sitting up and scrubbing a hand down his face to clear out all the residual sleep, before flailing a hand towards the end table, for his glasses. Before he can, Clarke snatches them up, perching them on his nose but missing his ears completely, so he has to readjust them.

“They’re cheaper in the long run,” he explains. “That one’s lasted me and O for six years.”

Clarke relents a little, but keeps frowning, so he knows she isn’t _happy_ about it. “Well, I refuse to have that monstrosity in the house,” she declares. “We’re getting a real one.”

Bellamy knows his grin is insanely goofy, but he can’t really help it. Clarke still lives in the nice townhouse downtown, with five of her sorority sisters, but in name only. He can’t remember the last time she didn’t fall asleep with him, either in bed or on the couch because they stayed up binge watching Marvel shows on Netflix.

“Yeah?” he asks, grin widening as she goes a little pink. “You gonna turn my house into one of those Christmas commercials?”

She makes a face. “Anything but that Folgers incest one,” she says, and he laughs, tugging her in.

He knows his mouth probably tastes like stale ass, but Clarke’s wearing a pair of candy-cane-striped socks and his Mets shirt, and nothing else, so he can’t really be held responsible. Plus her hair is still messy from bed, which is his favorite look on her.

“Bell,” she says, uncertain. His free hand slides up under his shirt to lay under her breast. “We have to get the tree _today_ —it’s already December twelfth! All the good ones will be taken!”

Bellamy hums in agreement, and ducks down to kiss her neck.

“We really have to go, if we want to have a proper selection,” she argues, even as she tips her head back to give him more room.

He grins and moves his mouth up to lick the skin behind her ear, and she squirms her way into his lap with a resigned huff.

“Fine,” she decides, pulling back to give him a stern look. “Sex first, _then_ the Christmas tree.”

“Whatever you say, princess,” he grins, and she gently takes his glasses off to put them on the shelf, before he rolls them both over.

They do end up going tree shopping after that—well, after breakfast, and then round two, and then lunch—but Clarke is wholly unimpressed with the trees they are offered.

“They don’t _need_ us, Bellamy,” she says, frowning at a perfect six-footer, with full needles and not too much trunk.

Bellamy stares at her, amused in spite of himself. It’s _cold_ out at the tree farm, and they’ve been sifting through the rows for _hours_ , and he can tell the salesman is getting frustrated. Bellamy can’t feel his fingers, or the tip of his nose, and Clarke’s going pink all over from the wind, but she’s also wearing her enormous puffy coat that makes her look like a marshmallow, which he can never really resist.

“So when you said we need a _good_ tree, you meant,” he hedges, and she huffs, little clouds of steam escaping her mouth.

“One that needs a good home,” she says, like it’s obvious. “Shopping for a Christmas tree is like going to the pound—you don’t look for a purebred at the pound, Bellamy. You look for the puppy with a missing eye, or mange. One that _needs_ us.”

“If this is code for wanting us to get a puppy,” Bellamy muses, reaching out to tug on the tassels of her hat. “I think we should probably live together, first.”

Clarke flushes, predictably, and swats his hand away. “The puppy was a metaphor,” she says primly, and gives a final disdainful sniff at the full trees around them. “These are all the golden retrievers of trees,” she decides, marching back towards the car, lifting her boots up high to get through the snow. “They’ll be fine.”

Bellamy gives the salesman a last apologetic shrug before following her.

“We’ve got two weeks until Christmas,” he says, as Clarke mopes against the passenger window.

“One and a half,” she corrects, and he laughs, reaching to fold their hands together, which is a little bit hard, since she’s wearing those mittens with the tops that flip back.

“We’ve got thirteen days until Christmas,” he placates with a shrug, and she squeezes his hand before turning the radio onto the channel that cycles through all the old-timey carols. “How hard can it be to find a pound puppy tree?”

It is annoyingly hard to find a pound puppy tree.

“I just don’t get it,” Bellamy whines to Miller. It’s now December seventeenth, and they’re at the faculty Christmas party, which basically just involves a lot of ugly sweaters, spiked eggnog, and everyone making a dartboard out of the Time cover of Donald Trump. “Why is there such an influx of perfect Christmas trees? What happened to all the lopsided ones, with chunks of missing needles?”

“Remind me why I care,” Miller says, but he’s wearing the light-up felt reindeer antlers Monty got him, so the effect is kind of lost.

“Clarke really wants one,” he shrugs, and it’s true enough, but it still feels sort of inadequate—like he only cares because she does, which isn’t really it. Clarke cares about every holiday more than he does, really. Back before they were even friends, she’d still bring in little gingerbread cookies, or Easter cupcakes with those candy robin’s eggs on top, and she always made sure he got one.

She saved him one, once, when he called in sick. He showed up the next day and found a perfectly frosted gingerbread Bellamy, in a Ziploc on his desk. It was hard, after that, not to invite her out to drinks with the rest of the office—they’d never really bothered, since the only person she really interacted with was Monty, the IT guy. But she said yes almost instantly, like all anyone had had to do was ask.

And then he got to see her drunkenly stumble through some k-pop at the karaoke bar, just because Monty asked her to duet with him. Her hair was down and messy, out of its usual braid, and she was affectionate, and laughing, goading everyone into playing that deer-hunting game in the corner of the bar, which she was impressively good at.

So that was where they were at, for a while—pleasant coworkers who sometimes got drunk together and shot virtual deer. But then Octavia came to pick him up from work once, and struck up a conversation with Clarke while she was waiting for him, and then somehow left with her number, getting more out of Clarke in fifteen minutes than he had in six months.

And then Octavia invited Clarke to paint the new rock wall being installed at her climbing gym, which was something they were sort of known for, the detailed montages sprawling across each wall, by Lincoln. Except Lincoln was too busy, and Clarke had mentioned that sometimes she designed book covers for young adult science fiction, which seemed oddly specific but neat, so Octavia offered. It was one huge space scene, with planets and solar systems and space pirate ships, and it’s still Bellamy’s favorite piece in the gym, but he might be biased.

Then Clarke invited Octavia to Sunday Brunch, which was apparently something she and her roommates did, that spawned during their sorority days at school. And Octavia brought Bellamy along, because she is the least subtle matchmaker of all time, and because with the last six months of him ranting drunkenly at her about his princess of a coworker, she could probably read between the lines.

And then Halloween came. Octavia guilted him into hosting the party, since she lived in a tiny studio with Roma, and everything was awkward because he’d slept with her that one time. And he couldn’t just not invite Clarke, right? It’d be rude. Plus, they were sort of friends by that point, even if he did want to make out with her half the time. It wouldn’t be fair to take that out on her. Besides, it’s not like he couldn’t control himself.

Except then she showed up dressed like fucking _Psyche_ , which—it suddenly made a lot more sense, why Octavia suggested the Beast costume.

Octavia is the _least_ subtle.

“I think my sister’s trying to make us happen,” he said, when she said hello, because apparently un-subtlety runs in his family.

“Oh,” Clarke hummed a little, and then looked up at him through her lashes. “Is it working?”

Bellamy felt his mouth run dry, and downed his beer in record time. “That depends—are you interested?”

Clarke thought it over for a minute, before giving a smirk that made his knees feel like jelly. “Lose the mask and claws, and we’ll talk.”

They were barely in his room—he had her pressed against the door, and went to pull off the acrylic claws O glued on for him that afternoon—when Clarke reached out and stilled his wrist.

“On second thought,” she said, voice gone all gravelly, eyes dark. “Leave them on.”

He was pretty much gone, after that.

Bellamy’s still thinking about that night, looking over at where Clarke’s messing with the dried ice, wafting it all into Murphy’s face, who clearly isn’t pleased about it—when Miller flicks him in the forehead.

“You disgust me,” he says, completely serious, like he somehow knows _exactly_ what Bellamy was thinking of.

“Like you aren’t,” he teases, flicking his eyes over to Monty and then taking another sip of eggnog. He’s already buzzed after just half a cup, so he’s pretty sure whoever made it got a little overzealous with the bourbon, but whatever.

“I have more self-control than you, apparently,” Miller shrugs. “How many tree farms have you guys been to, exactly?”

“Three or four,” Bellamy hedges, even though it’s more like two.

It turns out, it’s hard to go tree shopping every day. He and Clarke are busy adults with full-time jobs, and a social life. Kind of. Mostly it involves a lot of _Earth_ _After People_ marathons, but still. They have shit to do during the day, and it’s hard to fully appreciate Christmas trees at night, so.

“Jesus, if you want to go talk to your girlfriend, just go talk to your girlfriend,” Miller grouses, and Bellamy blinks a little, completely unaware he’d been looking at Clarke, again.

“Maybe I want to do more than _talk_ ,” he says, waggling his eyebrows, and Miller throws one of those silver pretzel bows that people stick on their presents, at his face.

“Someone had a little too much eggnog,” Clarke teases, shifting under his arm, and Bellamy doesn’t think that’s totally fair, since she’s wobbling just as much.

But she also has a lower body mass, and shittier alcohol tolerance in general, so she’s probably right.

“It was good,” he defends, and pauses to play with her hair, which is glowing from the streetlight up above them. Clarke shivers and makes a face.

“Bell, come _on_ , my nipples are going to tear through this sweater.”

“They are?” Bellamy glances down at her breasts, trying to see where they poke out. Clarke huffs and tugs him along through the parking lot.

“I called us an Uber,” she says, laughing when he frowns. He fucking _hates_ Uber’s, and she knows it, but it’s not like he can argue, since they’re both drunk. “I nominate you, to come pick up the car tomorrow.”

“That makes sense,” he agrees. “Since it is _my_ car—you just have a Vespa, remember? It’s parked in the garage.”

“Vespa’s are a very practical means of transportation,” she sniffs, and he snorts a little.

“Yeah, for six months of the year.” He worries his lip a little, because he feels like this might not be a conversation for when they’re drunk, but he knows he probably won’t bring it up when they’re sober. “I’m sorry we haven’t found you a tree, yet.”

Clarke shrugs, stuffing her hands in his back pockets to warm them up, and also grope his ass a little. “We’ll find one,” she says, like she hasn’t been whining about it for the past week.

“I just,” Bellamy thinks for a moment, trying to find the right words. “I want this to be your Best Christmas Ever.”

She grins up at him, leaning her chin on his chest. “My _Best Christmas Ever_?”

He considers, and then says “Maybe just in the Top 5.”

“Bell,” she grins, leaning up to press her mouth to his jaw. “It’s already in my Top 5.” She pulls back, so he can see how earnest she looks, even if her eyes are still a little bit glassy. “It’s my first Christmas with you.”

The only real response he has is to press her up against the lamppost, kissing her so she moans, and goes weak a little, so he’s the only thing holding her up.

The Uber shows up like five seconds later, because Uber’s are the _worst_ , and he pulls back, irritated.

“We’re finishing this at home,” he warns her, and she pecks him on the cheek with a smile.

“Get in the damn car, Blake.”

In the end, it’s Raven who finds it. He puts her on speakerphone because he’s knitting, and he knows once he puts the swatch down, he’ll never pick it up again. He has dozens of scarves that have just become coasters, because he got bored.

“I found Clarke’s tree,” she says in place of a greeting, and he glances up, even though he can’t actually see her.

“What?” he asks, and he swears he can _hear_ her rolling her eyes.

“I found her tree,” she repeats. “She wants the shitty one from Charlie Brown, right? She _always_ picks the shitty ones, so then Harper and I have to go out and get the pedigree one we keep the presents under. Except this year, your house has to deal with the shitty tree, so we can put the nice one in the corner like it deserves.”

“I never knew you were such a tree elitist,” he muses.

“Shut up,” Raven says, mild. “Do you want your cripple tree or not?”

“That’s rude.”

“I am also a cripple,” Raven points out. “So I can say that. Anyway, it’s down at Walmart. Honestly I don’t understand why you didn’t just shop there, first. Walmart always has the worst trees. They’re like, inbred, or something.”

“This conversation is getting more and more offensive,” Bellamy shakes his head. “But thanks for telling me. I’ll let her know.”

“I’m the best,” Raven chirps, and hangs up.

Clarke shows up with her arms full of greasy to-go bags, and another duffel filled with two weeks’ worth of clothes. He’s trying to figure out how to suggest just moving her dresser over—and maybe everything else she owns, too. Octavia’s been pestering him about it, but it’s a process. Clarke likes having an escape contingency, and he’s trying to go at her pace. It was hard just getting her to leave a toothbrush, at first.

“I got you the cheesiest burrito they had,” she says, making a face, and he fetches some plates from the cupboards. If Clarke had her way, they’d just eat straight out of the bags, but that’s how he ends up with grease stains on his couch, so. “Because _some_ people aren’t lactose intolerant.”

“Yeah, what assholes,” he grins, and she reaches up to kiss him on the cheek. Her lips are cold from outside, but still smooth, because she uses Vaseline religiously. She puts it on her nose too, to keep the skin from flaking. “Hey, um, why don’t we go look at Walmart?” When she looks confused, he adds “For a tree?”

She tips her head, her go-to Thinking Face, which he’s pretty sure she isn’t even aware that she does. “They probably don’t take very good care of them,” she says, slow, and he bites back a smile.

“Yeah. Tons of three-legged puppy-trees.”

“Okay,” she decides. “But first, food. I’ve got my priorities.”

“Definitely,” he agrees, and takes an enormous bite from his burrito, so melted cheese puddles out on the plate, and Clarke makes a face.

Raven’s right, of course, nearly all the trees for sale are shitty. But Clarke still takes her time, frowning down at each, and shaking them a little to find one with loose needles.

“This one,” she decides, pointing out a little three-footer, with just a handful of branches that are all mostly bald. She nods, like she’s agreeing with herself. “It needs us, Bellamy.”

“You don’t have to talk me into it,” he says, amused. “I’m already convinced, remember? We’re definitely pound people, not breeders.”

“Yeah,” she says, beaming. Two teenagers who look like they’d really rather be _anywhere_ else shove their tree through the green netting machine, so it comes out the other side shrink-wrapped. “We’re pound people, for sure.”

Clarke has a bunch of Christmas ornaments that she packed up in Tupperware when she moved out of her parents’ house, and a few that she painted, herself. Bellamy gave most of his to Octavia, when she left, but Clarke manages to find a tiny cardboard box in his attic, filled with old bits of crumbly Styrofoam, and the hand-made ornaments from when he was a kid, and couldn’t actually buy his mom presents.

He comes home from O’s, to find Clarke already decorating, and he goes over to pick up the hollowed-out shampoo bottle, with a cutout of the Virgin Mary that he glued inside. It’s yellow around the edges with age, and the picture’s all wrinkly because he didn’t flatten it down, and he laughs a little.

“This is literally the worst Christmas ornament of all time,” he says. “Where’d you even _find_ this?”

Clarke hangs it back on the tree where it was, and frowns up at him. “It’s an awesome ornament,” she argues, and he grins, fond.

“Clarke, that thing is an insult to ornaments everywhere.”

“You made it,” she punctuates herself with a poke to his chest. “So it’s awesome. Now help me with the lights.”

He does help her with the lights, eventually, after making out a lot, first. He’s got his priorities, too.

They each open one present on Christmas Eve, which was apparently her family’s tradition, and which Bellamy has no problem with. He could do with a little more tradition—he never really had any, growing up, and it seems like a nice thing to have.

He bought her a charm bracelet made out of white gold, with each dangling piece falling in with the _princess_ theme—a crown, a hand mirror, a little pendant with a _C_ on it. Clarke bought him a book, predictably, because he’s the easiest person to shop for. It’s all about Augustus, with footnotes in actual _Latin_ , and it’s going to sit on his bedside table for weeks while he reads it over and over.

“Is it weird that I sort of expected you to ask me to move in?” Clarke mumbles, voice muffled by his stomach, where she sort of flopped down after her orgasm. They’re still naked and sweaty, but his floors are heated, so he’s not sure they’ll ever move. “It’s just—we always seem to take the next step on some holiday.”

Bellamy smooths a hand up her back and she shivers. “There’s always Boxing Day,” he muses, and she laughs, but he’s only half-joking. He had the key made at Home Depot three days after Thanksgiving. It’s hidden in his underwear drawer, in a rolled up pair of socks, because Clarke has a habit of sifting through his dresser looking for old shirts to burrow in.

“Or New Year’s,” Clarke says, and her voice is light, but he’s pretty sure she’s not joking. When he tilts his head up a little more so he can see her, she’s looking back at him, worrying her lip. “Moving in sort of feels like a new start, right? Symbolism, and shit.”

“Yeah,” he grins, and she crawls up to kiss him. “We can't just pass up symbolism.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

They do end up moving, because they get hungry, but they don’t want to go far, so they just grab some of the candy canes off the tree, and then climb up on the couch.

He’ll definitely ask her, on New Year’s. He’s a sucker for symbolism, and Clarke might be the first resolution he keeps.


End file.
